I
’ll never forget my
first real fight against
another player in EVE
Online – it had taken
me, a fresh-faced
noobie at the time, almost a month
to scrounge up the ISK to buy a
beloved Catalyst destroyer, and
now I was about to lose it fighting a
player in a vastly more deadly
assault frigate. As my shields
evaporated in a single volley, I
began shaking so severely from the
adrenaline rush that I couldn’t
accurately use my mouse anymore.Dying in EVE Online is intense.
Unlike most other MMOs, where you
can simply respawn with all your
stuff and carry on with your quest, a
destroyed ship is gone forever. That
loss stings if you don’t have the ISK
to immediately purchase a
replacement. But while I raged in the
moment, those memories are some of
the strongest I’ve had playing any PC
game. It meant something to lose that
ship. There were stakes beyond good
and bad endings or plot twists
triggered by dialogue choices. EVE
Online was the first time I felt the
consequences of my actions in a
game. The emotional highs and lows
that came as a result have defined not
just how I think about PC games, but
also my career.SPACE TO GROW
So much of what I’ve come to love
about PC gaming is present in EVE
Online. It’s complex and takes a lot of
patience and persistence to
understand. Players are given
unparalleled freedom in deciding not
only what they want to do, but how
they fit into the greater EVE
community, and it’s a game that
consistently rewards quick wits and
clever strategising.
When I first started playing it
back in 2012 on a 13-inch Macbook
(forgive me), it was my first realexposure to these kinds of PC games
that just don’t exist on consoles. I
didn’t know it at the time, but EVE
Online was the beginning of my
transformation into a PC gamer.
Though I had always played games
on PC, like World of Warcraft and
multiplayer shooters, EVE was a
gateway drug that led me to Mount
and Blade and Path of Exile –
intimidating and hopelessly complex
games that feel almost infinite in
their scope. These are now some of
my most-played games of all time.
But EVE Online is also the one
game that got me to where I am
today as a senior reporter at PC
Gamer. When I was 25 years old, I
decided to make a wild pivot and
chase my childhood dream of writing
about videogames. And because I
loved EVE Online and the wild space
drama that erupts from it on an
almost daily basis, I had a hunch
other people might like those stories
too. My first-ever pitch was to PC
Gamer and it was about a band of
ruthless murderers in EVE. My
hunch was right, and my EVE Online
articles helped establish me as a
full-time freelance writer before
joining PC Gamer. Since then, I’ve
had the pleasure of writing about
everything from EVE Online’s
cunning pirates to how a scam turned
into the game’s greatest rescue
mission. I’ve travelled to Iceland, Las
Vegas, and Finland for these stories.
EVE Online is an MMO that
transcends how I normally think
about games and the people that play
them. It’s a weird alternate universe
experienced only through the cockpit
of ships that are typically only seen as
small icons floating in space. But
when those icons start shooting at
each other, incredible stories of
betrayal, loyalty and karma begin to
materialise. I’m not being hyperbolic
when I say living, hearing and telling
those stories for the past decade has
changed my life.FOUND IN SPACE
How the terror and tenacity of EVE ONLINE changed
my life. By Steven Messner
EVE ONLINEPC GAMING LEGENDS